Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) are catching more and more attentions for their broad application in civilian and military fields. Since the theories on the aerodynamics of low Reynolds number are not maturely presented and the wind-tunnel experiments cost long periods and great expenses. The numerical simulation based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a good method to choose. Through three-dimensional simulation of the wings, the aerodynamic characteristics of the flows around MAVs can be easily obtained. The tip vortices produced around low-Reynolds-number and low-aspect-ratio wings can increase the lift and stall angles. The result of numerical simulation can be used as references of theory analysis and wind-tunnel experiments.


PURPOSE OF REVIEW
Myeloid dendritic cells (mDCs) are pivotal players in HIV-1 infection. They promote transmission and spread and at the same time are critical for recognizing HIV-1 and initiating immune responses to fight infection. Notably, their immunostimulatory capabilities can be harnessed to design better HIV-1 vaccines. In this review, advances in these areas of mDC-HIV-1 interactions are summarized.

RECENT FINDINGS
New insights into HIV-1-induced dysfunction of mDCs and dysfunctional mDC effects on other cell types, as well as novel mechanisms of viral sensing by mDCs and their evasion by HIV-1, have been uncovered. These results emphasize the importance of mDCs in protection against HIV-1 infection. Targeting mDCs with vaccines and tailored adjuvants may improve the quality and anatomical location of elicited immune responses.

SUMMARY
Understanding the multiplicity of HIV-1-dendritic cell interactions together with the numerous advances in targeted therapy and vaccination will help in the rational design of approaches to treat and block infection.


We report the discovery of WTS-1b, the first extrasolar planet found by the WFCAM Transit Survey, which began observations at the 3.8-m United Kingdom Infrared Telescope. Light curves comprising almost 1200 epochs with a photometric precision of better than 1 per cent to J ∼ 16 were constructed for ∼ 60 000 stars and searched for periodic transit signals. For one of the most promising transiting candidates, highresolution spectra taken at the Hobby-Eberly Telescope allowed us to estimate the spectroscopic parameters of the host star, a late-F main sequence dwarf (V=16.13) with possibly slightly subsolar metallicity, and to measure its radial velocity variations. The combined analysis of the light curves and spectroscopic data resulted in an orbital period of the substellar companion of 3.35 days, a planetary mass of 4.01±0.35MJ , and a planetary radius of 1.49 −0.18 RJ . WTS-1b has one of the largest radius anomalies among the known hot Jupiters in the mass range 3-5MJ .


Abstract For the past four decades, extracorporeal life support (ECLS) has been used to treat critically ill adult and pediatric patients with cardiac and/or respiratory failure unresponsive to medical management, and there are increasing numbers of centers performing ECLS for numerous indications worldwide. Despite the progress with advancing technology, hemorrhagic and thrombotic complications occur frequently and are associated with worse outcomes, but the exact cause is often elusive or multifactorial. As a result of the interaction between blood and a nonendothelialized circuit, there is activation of coagulation, fibrinolysis, as well as an increased inflammatory response; thus, anticoagulation of the patient and circuit is necessary. While unfractionated heparin (UFH) remains the mainstay anticoagulant used during ECLS, there is a paucity of published data to develop a universal anticoagulation guideline and centers are forced to create individualized protocols to guide anticoagulation management, frequently while lacking expertise. From an international survey, centers often use a combination of tests to guide management, which in turn can lead to discordant results and confused management. Studies are urgently needed to investigate optimization of current anticoagulation strategies with UFH, as well as use of alternative anticoagulants and nonthrombogenic biomaterials.


The price of the New Zealand wool clip has steadily decreased over the years and the incumbent practitioners are looking for ways to increase the price. The price of the wool is determined by the marketing approaches that are adopted. An auction system is one of the wool marketing approaches and a total of 45% of the New Zealand wool clip is traded via auction (WIN, 2007).This auction is the English open out-cry public auction which has been running for the last 150 years in New Zealand. The key players of the auction (buyers, brokers and growers) as well as the New Zealand government are trying to understand the reasons behind the steady decrease in the price of the New Zealand wool clip. Further, the incumbent practitioners are questioning the auction system and looking for alternative ways of wool marketing. In this study, an attempt is made to model auction data. The data is available from the only auction centre in the South Island of New Zealand in Christchurch. Analytical approaches are used in developing the models from the data. Before fitting the data into the models, the database is thoroughly cleaned and a necessary and sufficient set of the parameters is produced by developing the approximation equations. The probability distributions of the parameters in the data base are observed. Best fitted distributions for all physical parameters are observed in terms of three measures namely mean square error, the chi-square and Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) goodness-of-fit hypothesis tests. The cleaned database is used in the models. The models are developed to predict the price of the different types of wool. The price from the auction centre and the predicted price are compared. The models based on linear regression analysis, multiple regression analysis and principal component analysis are developed. The developed regression models are tested for the goodness-of-fit against coefficient of determination, R 2 , which describes the proportion of variability in the data set accounted for by the model. The model from the principal component analysis is used for the possible dimensionality reduction in the data set. The developed models and the physical parameters of wool are discussed. The role of physical parameters that account for the price of wool in the auction system is investigated. It is hoped that the analysis of auction database and the developed models will help the practitioners of the New Zealand wool industry in better understanding the role of physical parameters of wool and the price formation of it.


Error in Byline: In the article titled "Association of Pain and Itch With Depth of Invasion and Inflammatory Cell Constitution in Skin Cancer: Results of a Large Clinicopathologic Study," published online July 23, 2014, in JAMA Dermatology (doi:10 .1001/jamadermatol.2014.895), the fifth author's name was incorrect and should have been given in the byline as Hong Liang Tey, MD. Consequently, the third institution and affiliations in the Author Affiliations section should have appeared as "Department of Dermatology, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina (Feneran, Tey, Lowenthal, Pearce, Williford)," and the fifth paragraph in the Author Contributions section should have been given as "Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: Yosipovitch, Mills, Nattkemper, Feneran, Tey, Lowenthal, Pearce, Williford, D'Agostino." This article was corrected online and in print.


We provide a framework for preconditioning nonlinear three-dimensional electromagnetic inverse scattering problems using nonlinear conjugate gradient (NLCG) and limited memory (LM) quasi-Newton methods. Key to our approach is the use of an approximate adjoint method that allows for an economical approximation of the Hessian that is updated at each inversion iteration. Using this approximate Hessian as a preconditioner, we show that the preconditioned NLCG iteration converges significantly faster than the non-preconditioned iteration, as well as converging to a data misfit level below that observed for the non-preconditioned method. Similar conclusions are also observed for the LM iteration; preconditioned with the approximate Hessian, the LM iteration converges faster than the non-preconditioned version. At this time, however, we see little difference between the convergence performance of the preconditioned LM scheme and the preconditioned NLCG scheme. A possible reason for this outcome is the behaviour of the line search within the LM iteration. It was anticipated that, near convergence, a step size of one would be approached, but what was observed, instead, were step lengths that were nowhere near one. We provide some insights into the reasons for this behaviour and suggest further research that may improve the performance of the LM methods.


About a year ago Mr. James Kirkpatrick brought to Kelvingrove Museum for my examination a number of specimens of "eenie" or eyed coal. They had been found by him at Gateside Colliery, Cambuslang. Mr. Kirkpatrick informed me at that time that he intended publishing a description of this somewhat remarkable coal, and only last night, along with Mr. C. T. Clough, he read a paper before the Mining Institute of Scotland dealing with similar specimens. I had the privilege of hearing this paper, which has since been published.1 It gives a very interesting account of all that is known regarding the peculiar structures shown in this coal. As there are, however, several points not touched upon by the author of this paper, I have ventured to lay the following notes upon the same subject before you. The eyed coal from Gateside Colliery occurs in flattened lenticles which may reach 5 or 6 feet in length, and have a width of 8 or 9 inches across their broadest parts. They occur in a bed of fireclay which lies between the Ell coal below and the Crow coal above. The lenticles lie parallel to the bedding planes of the strata, and it is quite clear that they are simply the carbonised remains of prostrate tree stems that have become embedded in the fireclay. No organic structure is shown in the coal, but the outside of the lenticle shows a series of parallel ribbings which are undoubtedly part of the original structure of This 250-word extract was created in the absence of an abstract


Large undisturbed cores were taken from different landscape positions (divergent shoulders, DSH, and convergent footslopes, CFS) at two sites in the Black soil zone. The soils are classified as belonging to the Oxbow association and have been cultivated for 15 and 82 years. The cores were used in a greenhouse experiment to study the effect of soil quality on yield of spring wheat (var. Katepwa) at three levels of simulated growing season precipitation: low (123 mm season-1), mid (189 mm season-1), and high (332 mm season·1). Grain yields in the DSH cores increased with increasing precipitation for both the 15and 82-year soils. Moreover, the 15-year DSH cores outyielded their 82-year counterparts by 50, 76, and 85% at the low, mid, and high water levels, respectively. Cores from the CFS positions were watered only at the mid-water level. Grain yields in the 15and 82-year CFS cores and the 15-year DSH cores were not significantly different (P ~ 0.05). The results of this study indicate that soil quality is a relatively minor factor when water is limiting but assumes a much greater role in years of normal or above normal growing season precipitation. These initial results also suggest that large cores are a feasible and cost-effective means of studying soil-plant relationships in the greenhouse or growth chamber.


Background—Limited prospective epidemiological data are available on the relation between exposure to Chlamydia pneumoniae, Helicobacter pylori, cytomegalovirus (CMV), and hepatitis A virus (HAV), individually or as a total pathogen score, and human cardiovascular (CV) disease. Methods and Results—We analyzed enrollment sera from 3168 Canadian patients in the Heart Outcomes Prevention Evaluation (HOPE) study for antibodies to C pneumoniae, H pylori, CMV, and HAV and measured the relation between serostatus and 494 adjudicated trial outcomes of myocardial infarction, stroke, or CV death over 4.5 years of follow-up. CV events were associated with CMV serostatus (covariate-adjusted hazard ratio [HR], 1.24; 95% CI, 1.01, 1.53). Neither C pneumoniae IgG (adjusted HR, 0.87; 95% CI, 0.68, 1.10), C pneumonia IgA (adjusted HR, 1.10; 95% CI, 0.90, 1.34), H pylori IgG (HR, 0.99; 95% CI, 0.82, 1.19), nor HAV IgG (HR, 1.01; 95% CI, 0.83, 1.24) predicted CV events. Total pathogen score was associated with CV events (adjusted HR for 4 versus 1 or 0=1.41; 95% CI, 1.02, 1.96). Conclusions—Exposure to CMV but not to C pneumoniae, H pylori, or HAV was associated with a slight excess risk of subsequent myocardial infarction, stroke, or CV death in HOPE study patients, and total pathogen score based on these infections predicted a small increased hazard of CV events.


Corrosion law and mechanism of 20# low-carbon steel in near-neutral soil along Yangtze River in Nanjing are studied by experiments of buried specimens in laboratory. In three kinds of soils, the corrosion features and products are analyzed by EDS and XRD, and the relation of corrosion rates, open-circuit potential and polarization curve with times are tested. The results indicated that corrosion rates changed incessantly along. On the condition of the same times, specimens and different soil samples, the corrosive degree of 1# and 2# specimens are serious, but 3# specimen is serious lightly. The corrosion products are main non-crystalloid, Fe (OH) 3 and Fe2O3.The changing tendency of different times and soils is different, and accordant with that of corrosion rates. The corrosion mechanism is discussed lastly, in near-neutral soils, oxygen is deoxidized and OH- ions are created in cathode area, iron is oxidized and the hydration of Fe2+ ions is created with water from soil in anode area, and Fe2+ are converted into more steady products Fe(OH)3 and Fe2O3.


Studies of the anther transcriptome on non-model plants without a known genome are surprisingly scarce. RNA-Seq and digital gene expression (DGE) profiling provides a comprehensive approach to identify candidate genes contributing to developmental processes in non-model species. Here we built a transcriptome library of developing anthers of Hamelia patens and analyzed DGE profiles from each stage to identify genes that regulate tapetum and pollen development. In total 7,720 putative differentially expressed genes across four anther stages were identified. The number of putative stage-specific genes was: 776 at microspore mother cell stage, 807 at tetrad stage, 322 at uninucleate microspore stage, and the highest number (1,864) at bicellular pollen stage. GO enrichment analysis revealed 243 differentially expressed and 108 stage-specific genes that are potentially related to tapetum development, sporopollenin synthesis, and pollen wall. The number of expressed genes, their function and expression profiles were all significantly correlated with anther developmental processes. Overall comparisons of anther and pollen transcriptomes with those of rice and Arabidopsis together with the expression profiles of homologs of known anther-expressed genes, revealed conserved patterns and also divergence. The divergence may reflect taxon-specific differences in gene expression, the use RNA-seq as a more sensitive methodology, variation in tissue composition and sampling strategies. Given the lack of genomic sequence, this study succeeded in assigning putative identity to a significant proportion of anther-expressed genes and genes relevant to tapetum and pollen development in H. patens. The anther transcriptome revealed a molecular distinction between developmental stages, serving as a resource to unravel the functions of genes involved in anther development in H. patens and informing the analysis of other members of the Rubiaceae.


Lithium rechargeable battery is a new type of battery developed in recent years. The studies on this system are naturally focused on the cathode material. The cathode material with conducting skeleton and energy-storing side lines was reported and a novel material carbyne polysulfide was studied. This paper was to explore a convenient approach for preparing carbyne polysulfide. The products obtained by co-heating polyvinylidene chloride(PVDC) and pulverized sulfur in ammonia environment was characterized by DSC /TG, IR, Raman spectrums and elemental analysis. And the product had been proved to have a sp2 hybride carbon skeleton with polysulfide attached on it, which resembles the theoretical structure of carbyne polysulfide. The material with favorable sulfur contents exhibited high specific capacity up to 705 mAh/g in the initial cycle and a stable reversible capacity approximately 420 mAh/g.


&NA; Butyl‐2‐cyanoacrylate is an easily applied, biocompatible, bioresorbable polymer glue that provides an alternative to conventional rigid fixation techniques. Our aim was to determine if cyanoacrylate fixation of the bone flap in a rabbit craniotomy model provides the healing and strength afforded by plate and screw fixation. We also investigated the inflammatory responses of adjacent tissues including the scalp, cranium, and brain. A unilateral parietal bone flap was elevated in 33 adult New Zealand rabbits. The bone was fixed in position with cyanoacrylate (n = 13), fixed with a microplate and screws (n = 14), or was replaced without fixation (sham‐control, n = 6). Normal scar formation and no residual polymer were found in scalp specimens. Neuropathologic analysis identified the presence of residual polymer on the surface of 2 of the 13 rabbit brains. Histopathologic analysis of the bone flap‐to‐skull interface revealed no difference in the degree but rather in the quality of inflammation and healing between the plate and screw and polymer fixation groups. Microdensitometric analysis of the bone gap revealed nearly equivalent bone density in the cyanoacrylate and plated groups, tending to less density in the sham group (p = 0.11 and 0.09, respectively). An additional study focusing on neurotoxicity was performed in 20 adult rabbits with 3‐week and 11‐week recovery periods and similarly found the absence of a marked inflammatory response to the polymer. In conclusion, bone healing and soft‐tissue inflammation were comparable between cyanoacrylate and plate and screw fixation groups. Although butyl‐2‐cyanoacrylate glue fixation may provide a reasonable alternative to hardware fixation, further investigations are necessary to identify its ideal utilization. (Plast. Reconstr. Surg. 102: 309, 1998.)


Abstract Background and objectives: In 2016, we performed a scoping review as a means of mapping what is known in the literature about feedback to medical learners. In this descriptive analysis, we explore a subset of the results to assess the contributions of predominantly North American family medicine educators to the feedback literature. Methods: Nineteen articles extracted from our original scoping review plus six articles identified from an additional search of the journal Family Medicine are described in-depth. Results: The proportion of articles involving family medicine educators identified in our scoping review is small (n=19/650, 3%) and the total remains low (25) after including additional articles (n=6) from a Family Medicine search. They encompass a broad range of feedback methods and content areas. They primarily originated in the United States (n=19) and Canada (n=3) within Family Medicine Departments (n=20) and encompass a variety of scientific and educational research methodologies. Conclusions: The contributions of predominantly North American Family Medicine educators to the literature on feedback to learners are sparse in number and employ a variety of focus areas and methodological approaches. More studies are needed to assess for areas of education research where family physicians could make valuable contributions.


It is the extremely important to the intelligence traffic that the automation characters recognition of license plate system. The LS-SVM has been successfully adopted to make a multi-class classifier on the small samples, nonlinear data. It is presented the LS-SVM model methodology on the characters recognition system in the paper. A typical characters recognition of license plate system is composed of the license location, characters extracted and character recognition. The improved genetic algorithm is applied to the optimized selection parameters on the LS-SVM model. It put emphasis on the parameter optimization LS-SVM model of the characters recognition method of license plate system in the paper. Experiments showed the method is not only feasible, but also have high accuracy, good stability, better computational speed and good generalization ability. the results indicates that the LS-SVM strategy improve recognition rate and therefore has more practicability.


This paper compiles similarities and differences among Automotive EMC Standards. In particular, the paper concentrates on EMC standards dedicated to testing automotive components. The paper presents an introduction of the primary automotive component standards. Based on this introduction, CISPR 25 and the ISO 11452-2 are analyzed since they are the basis for most other standards. The anechoic chamber requirements are studied in detail.


We study uniqueness of weak solutions of elliptic equations of the type
- div (a(x,u,∇u))+b(x,u)=f(x)
in a bounded domain Ω⊂ℝ n with Lipschitz boundary γ=∂Ω. We consider in particular mixed boundary conditions - i.e. Dirichlet condition on one part of the boundary and Neumann condition on the other part. A model equation could be
- div (a(x,u)|∇u|p(x)-2∇u)+b(x,u)=f(x),x∈Ω·
We establish uniqueness results for these equations. We also indicate conditions which guarantee existence of solution.


Most studies of cell signaling in vitro use cells grown as monolayers on rigid and non-physiological substrata. However, epithelial cells in vivo are attached on malleable extracellular matrix (ECM) and are organized into three dimensional (3D) structures with the aid of cell-cell and cell-ECM interactions. The rigidity of the ECM and the 3D cellular architecture have a profound influence on cell growth, survival and differentiation mediated through changes in cell signaling and gene transcription. P53 is a transcription factor capable of responding to a variety of stresses and signals. Furthermore, the level of P53 negative regulator Hdm2 is influenced by mitogenic signalings from the environment. Since the activity of P53 is influenced by the levels of its upstream regulators, changes in cell architecture may influence Hdm2 level and P53 activity. To study the modulation of P53 activity by different transgenes, an improved Cre-loxP recombination system was characterized. The new LoxP site (designated L3), which when used with the original LoxP site (designated L2), allows highly efficient and directional replacement of chromosomal DNA at a defined locus with incoming DNA. When used in combination with a stringent inducible system, the level of transgene expression can be controlled at physiologically relevant levels in an in vitro setting. The study of the influence of cell architecture and the impact of neighboring stromal cells on P53 activity and levels of its upstream regulators were described in subsequent chapters. We found that cells grown in 3D were more resistant to apoptosis induced by a combination of doxorubicin and Nutlin. The sensitivity to apoptosis correlated with the efficiency of Hdmx downregulation. Lowering Hdmx level by shRNA in 3D cells sensitizes these cells to apoptosis induced by doxorubicin and Nutlin. Hence, the cell architecture is one factor to consider in determining the efficacy of chemotherapeutic agents as it can impact on Hdmx level to reduce P53-dependent apoptosis


Abstract. The atmospheric multiphase reaction of dinitrogen
pentoxide (N2O5) with chloride-containing aerosol particles
produces nitryl chloride (ClNO2), which has been observed across the
globe. The photolysis of ClNO2 produces chlorine radicals and nitrogen
dioxide (NO2), which alter pollutant fates and air quality. However,
the effects of local meteorology on near-surface ClNO2 production are
not yet well understood, as most observational and modeling studies focus on
periods of clear conditions. During a field campaign in Kalamazoo, Michigan,
from January–February 2018, N2O5 and ClNO2 were measured
using chemical ionization mass spectrometry, with simultaneous measurements
of atmospheric particulate matter and meteorological parameters. We examine
the impacts of atmospheric turbulence, precipitation (snow, rain) and fog,
and ground cover (snow-covered and bare ground) on the abundances of
ClNO2 and N2O5. N2O5 mole ratios were lowest during
periods of lower turbulence and were not statistically significantly
different between snow-covered and bare ground. In contrast, ClNO2 mole
ratios were highest, on average, over snow-covered ground, due to saline
snowpack ClNO2 production. Both N2O5 and ClNO2 mole
ratios were lowest, on average, during rainfall and fog because of
scavenging, with N2O5 scavenging by fog droplets likely
contributing to observed increased particulate nitrate concentrations. These
observations, specifically those during active precipitation and with
snow-covered ground, highlight important processes, including N2O5
and ClNO2 wet scavenging, fog nitrate production, and snowpack
ClNO2 production, that govern the variability in observed atmospheric
chlorine and nitrogen chemistry and are missed when considering only clear
conditions.


Transient Stability Assessment (TSA) is the major part of Dynamic Security Assessment (DSA) in an electric power system. On-line TSA has gained more importance for power system security in last two decades. The decreasing costs of hardware and advanced package programs and techniques encourage researchers to apply parallel programming to the problems that are either too much time consuming or impossible to solve using serial computers. The real-time evaluation of TSA is now almost possible thanks to such tools and techniques. We demonstrate the use of the parallel computing toolbox of Matlab for TSA. In this regard, IEEE 57 and 118 bus systems are tested with 57 and 56 contingencies respectively. Each contingency requires solution of a transient stability problem. The parallel performance of this implementation is expected to spur researchers to use parallel programming in Matlab environment. It requires minimal knowledge regarding parallel programming.


Abstract
Introduction: Oral cancer has a poor prognosis due to late detection and the high risk of recurrence and development of secondary tumours at distant sites. This may be attributed to the fact that conventional anticancer therapy does not eradicate the cancer stem cells which are a subset of the tumour cell population characterised by unique properties including their capability for indefinite self-renewal, proliferation and differentiation to diverse heterogeneous cell lineages that form the bulk of the tumour. Moreover, they are highly tumourigenic, play a crucial role in invasion and metastasis and also have the ability to resist anticancer therapy. Identifying and isolating CSCs is considered an important step in order to study their biological characteristics accurately with the aim of subsequently targeting and eradicating them. CSCs isolation has previously been mainly based on the expression of specific markers or clonogenicity as well as the rapid adherence of such cells to ECM proteins.
Aims: The purpose of this study to develop functional assays (adhesion and chemoresistance) to isolate CSCs from OSCC cell lines and investigate the stem cell characteristics of the sorted cells compared to unsorted cells. Additionally, we aimed to investigate the stability of the isolated phenotypes and determine whether the CSCs signal differently from non-CSCs to stromal cells (fibroblasts).


Agro ecological system of amaranth is a basic unit in the field of sustainable production in agriculture. The properties of the cultivars determine their potential for application: food, fodder, medicinal, decorative, organic fertilizer, protection from wind, erosion control, phytomelioration, phytoremediation, biofuel, utilization of unused land, to purify the areas of nematodes, in mixed crops, like monoculture or as an alternative crop in field and vegetable crop rotations. Aim of the study is to explore the available technological solutions in the production of pseudocerealsc such as amaranth cultural forms, worldwide. In the present study the subject of field experience are leaf amaranth, quinoa and grain amaranth. Purpose of the experiment is to determine whether the microclimate near the town of Plovdiv is suitable for growing crops. Plovdiv field represents alluvial plains formed in Central South Bulgaria on the Maritsa River and its tributaries. The climate is continental, quite typical for central southern parts of Europe. The plants of A. sruentus developed normally and yields are comparable to received in different parts of the world in a production environment. The economic viability of production of amaranth is determined by the specific use of the product. Culture should be cultivated after determining the target market, choosing the appropriate marketing strategy and preferably after signing contracts with buyers. Under these conditions, the profitability of the amaranth is five to ten times higher than that of wheat.


Abstract. Emissions of aviation include CO2, H2O, NOx, sulfur oxides, and soot. Many studies have investigated the annual mean climate impact of aviation emissions. While CO2 has a long atmospheric residence time and is almost uniformly distributed in the atmosphere, non-CO2 gases and particles and their products have short atmospheric residence times and are heterogeneously distributed. The climate impact of non-CO2 aviation emissions is known to vary with different meteorological background situations. The aim of this study is to systematically investigate the influence of characteristic weather situations on aviation climate effects over the North Atlantic region, to identify the most sensitive areas, and to potentially detect systematic weather-related similarities. If aircraft were re-routed to avoid climate-sensitive regions, the overall aviation climate impact might be reduced. Hence, the sensitivity of the atmosphere to local emissions provides a basis for the assessment of weather-related, climate-optimized flight trajectory planning. To determine the climate change contribution of an individual emission as a function of location, time, and weather situation, the radiative impact of local emissions of NOx and H2O to changes in O3, CH4, H2O and contrail cirrus was computed by means of the ECHAM5/MESSy Atmospheric Chemistry model. From this, 4-dimensional climate change functions (CCFs) were derived. Typical weather situations in the North Atlantic region were considered for winter and summer. Weather-related differences in O3, CH4, H2O, and contrail cirrus CCFs were investigated. The following characteristics were identified: enhanced climate impact of contrail cirrus was detected for emissions in areas with large-scale lifting, whereas low climate impact of contrail cirrus was found in the area of the jet stream. Northwards of 60∘ N, contrails usually cause climate warming in winter, independent of the weather situation. NOx emissions cause a high positive climate impact if released in the area of the jet stream or in high-pressure ridges, which induces a south- and downward transport of the emitted species, whereas NOx emissions at, or transported towards, high latitudes cause low or even negative climate impact. Independent of the weather situation, total NOx effects show a minimum at ∼250 hPa, increasing towards higher and lower altitudes, with generally higher positive impact in summer than in winter. H2O emissions induce a high climate impact when released in regions with lower tropopause height, whereas low climate impact occurs for emissions in areas with higher tropopause height. H2O CCFs generally increase with height and are larger in winter than in summer. The CCFs of all individual species can be combined, facilitating the assessment of total climate impact of aircraft trajectories considering CO2 and spatially and temporally varying non-CO2 effects. Furthermore, they allow for the optimization of aircraft trajectories with reduced overall climate impact. This also facilitates a fair evaluation of trade-offs between individual species. In most regions, NOx and contrail cirrus dominate the sensitivity to local aviation emissions. The findings of this study recommend considering weather-related differences for flight trajectory optimization in favour of reducing total climate impact.


In rock engineering projects, professionals assess the overall rock mass qualities using a sole value. However, the true qualities of partial rock masses are incompatible with such a value. To address this problem, the idea of regionally classifying rock mass qualities is proposed and the associated procedure presented. To achieve this goal, the probabilistic and deterministic joints within the study area were determined, and a three-dimensional joint network model was created. Then, the three-dimensional joint network model was discretized into interlocking subdomains, and the modified blockiness index (MBi) was used to finely identify the homogeneous structural regions, together with the k-means algorithm and the sum of squared errors (SSE). A synthetic model comprising homogeneous structural regions was developed and validated with respect to the extracted cross-sections. Next, an improved rock mass rating system (RMRmbi) was introduced, and the viability of RMRmbi was supported through a significant amount of theoretical cases and several real cases. Finally, visualization of regional RMRmbi classification results was performed. Results show that: (i) the homogeneous structural regions are finely demarcated in three dimensions, and (ii) the proposed idea can overcome the problem of rock mass quality classification using the conventional approach often leading to 'overgeneralization'.


Abstract. The remaining populations of the endangered dwarf wedgemussel (DWM) (Alasmidonta heterodon) in the upper Delaware River, northeastern USA, were hypothesized to be located in areas of greater-than-normal groundwater discharge to the river. We combined physical (seepage meters, monitoring wells and piezometers), thermal (fiber-optic distributed temperature sensing, infrared, vertical bed-temperature profiling), and geophysical (electromagnetic-induction) methods at several spatial scales to characterize known DWM habitat and explore this hypothesis. Numerous springs were observed using visible and infrared imaging along the river banks at all three known DWM-populated areas, but not in adjacent areas where DWM were absent. Vertical and lateral groundwater gradients were toward the river along all three DWM-populated reaches, with median upward gradients 3 to 9 times larger than in adjacent reaches. Point-scale seepage-meter measurements indicated that upward seepage across the riverbed was faster and more consistently upward at DWM-populated areas. Discrete and areally distributed riverbed-temperature measurements indicated numerous cold areas of groundwater discharge during warm summer months; all were within areas populated by DWM. Electromagnetic-induction measurements, which may indicate riverbed geology, showed patterning but little correlation between bulk streambed electromagnetic conductivity and areal distribution of DWM. In spite of complexity introduced by hyporheic exchange, multiple lines of research provide strong evidence that DWM are located within or directly downstream of areas of substantial focused groundwater discharge to the river. Broad scale thermal-reconnaissance methods (e.g., infrared) may be useful in locating and protecting other currently unknown mussel populations.


This report highlights the association between tuberous sclerosis and WolVParkinson-White syndrome. Ten patients with concurrent diagnoses of WolVParkinson-White syndrome and tuberous sclerosis were identified. WolV-ParkinsonWhite syndrome presented early in life, nine cases being diagnosed in the first year. Eight of the 10 cases were male. In eight cases, the syndrome was associated with supraventricular tachycardias, and in nine with cardiac rhabdomyomata. One child died from cardiac failure secondary to obstruction of the left ventricular outflow tract by a rhabdomyoma. Five of nine survivors showed resolution of WolVParkinson-White syndrome on follow up. The accessory pathway was localised in nine patients from surface electrocardiograms: six children had left sided pathways and three had right sided pathways. (Arch Dis Child 1998;78:159–162)


Educational progress and advancement is essential to the social and economical growth in Nepal. With 2015 as the goal date for the Dakar Framework for Action, identification of methods to improve student outcomes is fundamental to this goal. Assessing student learning behaviors in order to strengthen and/or remediate a student's approach to learning facilitates academic achievement. The Learning Behaviors Scale (LBS) provides a behaviorally based assessment instrument for exploring students' behaviors in the classroom. This study investigated the factor structure, multidimensional structure, and item endorsement of the LBS for a sample of 223 school-aged Nepalese students. A four-factor structure was revealed for this population. The four factors represent: task approach; emotional negativity/sojho; task engagement/thiken; and self-control. In addition, two dimensions of learning behaviors emerge. These represent task approach and level of engagement. Finally, a comparative analysis of the data identified similarities between the US sample and the Nepalese sample. The results of this study indicate a pattern of learning behaviors, as identified by the LBS, which is similar across the two cultures.


Adult-onset Still's disease (AOSD) is a multisystemic inflammatory disease of unknown cause, characterised by daily spiking fever, rash, leucocytosis and arthritis. Cytokines such as interleukin (IL)1, 6 and 18, interferon γ, tumour necrosis factor are thought to have a role in the pathogenesis of the disease.1 2 Treatments such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, steroids, methotrexate (MTX), gold, azathioprine, leflunomide, ciclosporin and biological agents (tumour necrosis factor blockers, IL1 receptor antagonist or rituximab) can help in the management of patients, depending on presentation and disease course.3–5

We report on a young woman with refractory AOSD successfully treated with anti-IL6 receptor antibody (tocilizumab), whose efficacy has been shown in …


Atomic force microscope (AFM) is primarily a tool for characterising surface topography, but there is also a strong interest in using AFM as a nanomanipulator to modify the sample surface or manipulate nanostructures. It is greatly important to understand the mechanics of AFM-based manipulation for efficient and reliable handling of nanoparticles. However, the microscopes for this kind of application have not been developed completely. During nanomanipulation process by AFM, the manipulation forces are measured according to cantilever deflection which is affected directly by spring constants of cantilever probe. Hence the cantilever probe is the most significant and sensitive component of the AFM. Typically, there are three cantilever types which are used for AFM, that is rectangular, V-shaped and dagger probes. In this Letter, the lateral, longitudinal and normal spring constants of the mentioned cantilever probes are analysed and discussed.


In this article, we conducted the evaluation of artificial intelligence research from 1990–2014 by using bibliometric analysis. We introduced spatial analysis and social network analysis as geographic information retrieval methods for spatially-explicit bibliometric analysis. This study is based on the analysis of data obtained from database of the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-Expanded) and Conference Proceedings Citation Index-Science (CPCI-S). Our results revealed scientific outputs, subject categories and main journals, author productivity and geographic distribution, international productivity and collaboration, and hot issues and research trends. The growth of article outputs in artificial intelligence research has exploded since the 1990s, along with increasing collaboration, reference, and citations. Computer science and engineering were the most frequently-used subject categories in artificial intelligence studies. The top twenty productive authors are distributed in countries with a high investment of research and development. The United States has the highest number of top research institutions in artificial intelligence, producing most single-country and collaborative articles. Although there is more and more collaboration among institutions, cooperation, especially international ones, are not highly prevalent in artificial intelligence research as expected. The keyword analysis revealed interesting research preferences, confirmed that methods, models, and application are in the central position of artificial intelligence. Further, we found interesting related keywords with high co-occurrence frequencies, which have helped identify new models and application areas in recent years. Bibliometric analysis results from our study will greatly facilitate the understanding of the progress and trends in artificial intelligence, in particular, for those researchers interested in domain-specific AI-driven problem-solving. This will be of great assistance for the applications of AI in alternative fields in general and geographic information science, in particular.


SARS-CoV-2 is one of three recognized coronaviruses (CoVs) that have caused epidemics or pandemics in the 21st century and that likely emerged from animal reservoirs. Differences in nucleotide and protein sequence composition within related β-coronaviruses are often used to better understand CoV evolution, host adaptation, and their emergence as human pathogens. Here we report the comprehensive analysis of amino acid residue changes that have occurred in lineage B β-coronaviruses that show covariance with each other. This analysis revealed patterns of covariance within conserved viral proteins that potentially define conserved interactions within and between core proteins encoded by SARS-CoV-2 related β-coronaviruses. We identified not only individual pairs but also networks of amino acid residues that exhibited statistically high frequencies of covariance with each other using an independent pair model followed by a tandem model approach. Using 149 different CoV genomes that vary in their relatedness, we identified networks of unique combinations of alleles that can be incrementally traced genome by genome within different phylogenic lineages. Remarkably, covariant residues and their respective regions most abundantly represented are implicated in the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 and are also enriched in dominant SARS-CoV-2 variants.


Since the beginning of the nineties, there is a vigorous discourse on the necessity of political reforms in Japan. In the
mid-nineties the reform of the electoral system and the administrati-on, both emphasized as important measures to
improve the Japanese political system, were conducted. Since the end of the nineties major topics of the reform
discourse are a revision of the constitution and referenda at the local level. What effects do the reforms mentioned have
on Japanese democracy? Do they bring about a qualitative improvement of the Japanese de-mocratic system? These
four political reforms are analyzed by focussing on the question whether these reforms can be regarded as a
'redemocratization' or a step towards 'more de-mocracy' in the sense of extending citizens' opportunities for
participation. In addition, it is asked whether Japan is cooperating with other Asian countries, which also discuss
political reforms at present, and if this may lead to a regional community building.
This analysis draws mainly on interviews with Japanese political scientists, members of citi-zen movements and local
politicians, that were conducted in Japan in November/December 2000.


Wc read the report on training in intensive care (Anaesthesia 1983; 38: 540) with considerable interest. The authors apparently sent questionnaires to over 600 anaesthetic and medical senior registrars asking for their views on training in intensive therapy. Only 168 were returned which represents a lamentable 287; response rate. Completing a questionnaire requires a degree of motivation. but obviously motivation was lacking for 67% of the anaesthetists circulated since they did not reply. Could it be that they represent the silent majority who are satisfied with their training? Even amongst the respondents 4S% considered their training adequate. On the basis of this very small survey, the authors have made several sweeping statements, the most obvious of which appears in the summary: 'The results suggest that training is inadequate and that trainees are dissatisfied with the current situation'. It is simply not correct to make such an assertion on such flimsy data and it is of serious concern to us that the mere fact of its publication may lead to its acceptance. There is a clear need for more data before reports of this type can be allowed to influence our planning.


The decisions of the June 1987 Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee provide a solid foundation for elaborating a theoretical concept to underly management of the agrarian sector of society. The task of the authors is to provide well-grounded methodological principles of such a system of agricultural management that would encompass the sector's economic, social, territorial, and political aspects as a unified whole. The realization of this task is a complex problem and will require a long time.


Nodular goiter with autoimmune thyroiditis is one of the most important problems of modern endocrinology, with inadequately studied etiological and pathogenic mechanisms of development. It is characterized by the lack of objective and reliable diagnostic methods, effective treatment methods, uncertain therapy or indications for the choice of treatment methods. A total we have examined 125 patients who were operated for a nodular endemic goiter with autoimmune thyroiditis. Investigated the activity of proliferation and apoptosis of thyrocytes in the thyroid tissue of patients of nodular goiter with autoimmune thyroiditis considering the polymorphism of the bcl-2 (rs17759659), ctla-4 (rs231775), apo-1/fas (rs2234767) genes. The expression/density markers Fas/ FasL, Bcl-2, p53 and Ki-67 on the thyrocytes in the lymphoid infiltration and destruction areas, as well as in normal thyroid tissue (as a control) were studied. The number of immunoreactive cells, which expressed the above-mentioned regulating apoptosis and proliferation markers in NGAIT patients, depending on the genes polymorphism BCL-2 (rs17759659), CTLA-4 (rs231775) and APO-1/Fas (rs2234767) were counted. It was found that in NGAIT patients a few links of programmable thyroid cell killing of Fas-induced apoptosis were activated, and associated with the polymorphic cite of BCL-2 (rs17759659) gene and almost 6 times weaker with CTLA-4 (rs231775) gene, through enhanced expression of Fas and Fas L on the cells surface in lymphoid infiltration and destruction areas (stronger in GG genotype carriers of BCL2 gene).


Whether morphologically complex words are stored as a whole or decomposed into constituents has been well-investigated experimentally in Indo-European languages like English, Italian, Dutch and French. There is substantial evidence in these languages in favor of and architecture which allows both decomposition and storage. This study investigates how morphologically complex words involving two or more morphemes are represented in Turkish which, unlike IndoEuropean languages, is renowned for its highly rich morphology. Applying a probabilistic tradeoff-based model of morphological storage and computation (O'Donnell 2015) to a corpus of Turkish word forms, we derive predictions about stored patterns in the language. We discuss these patterns and propose several for future experimental investigation.


This study illustrates the application of lean management and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to improve the logistics efficiency in a distribution center. The distribution center stores more than ten million parts belonging to about ten thousand types. There are more than ten thousand storage and retrieval operations for hundreds of part types on a daily basis. Value stream mapping was used to draw current state mapping with material flow, information flow, and time flow. Based on the concept of business process reengineering, future state mapping with RFID application was developed. Preliminary experiments showed that 100% read rate was achieved with a fixed RFID reader and an antenna installed at a garage door and Ultra-High Frequency passive tags mounted on each pallet. The benefit using RFID in the distribution center is analyzed (e.g., with a saving of cycle time and process time by 24% and 22%, respectively) and promoted.


ABSTRACT Connectives can facilitate the processing of discourse relations by helping comprehenders to infer the intended coherence relation holding between two text spans. Previous experimental studies have focused on pairs of connectives that are very different from one another to be able to compare and formalize the distinguishing effects of these particles in discourse comprehension. In this article, we compare two connectives, but and although, which overlap in terms of the relations they can signal. We demonstrate in a set of carefully controlled studies that while a connective can be a marker of several discourse relations, it can have a specific fine-grained biasing effect on linguistic inferences and that this bias can be derived (or predicted) from the connectives' distribution of relations found in production data. The effects that we find speak to the ambiguity of discourse connectives, in general, and the different functions of but and although, in particular. These effects cannot be explained within the earlier accounts of discourse connectives, which propose that each connective has a core meaning or processing instruction. Instead, we here lay out a probabilistic account of connective meaning and interpretation, which is based on the distribution of connectives in production and is supported by our experimental findings.


'Bayesian hierarchical predictive coding of human social behaviour.' Biological agents are the most complex systems humans encounter in their natural environment and it is critical to model other's mental states correctly to predict their behaviour. To do this one has to generate a mental representation based on an internal neural model of the other agent (Chapter 1). Here we show, in a series experiments, that people use and update their Bayesian priors in social situations and explain how they create mental representations of others to guide action selection. We investigate the neural mechanisms and the brain connectivity that underlie these social processes and how they develop with age. In chapter 2, we show how experimentally induced prior experience with other people (here social inclusion or exclusion) influences the level of trust towards those people. In chapter 3, we describe an fMRI study using a social perspective-taking task that examines the developmental differences between adolescents and adults in the control of action selection by social information. Using the same task, in chapter 4, we investigate the effective connectivity between the activated regions with Dynamic causal modelling. In Chapter 5, we explore effective connectivity of fMRI data from the Human connectome project (Van Essen et al., 2012). During the task participants viewed animations of triangles moving either randomly or so that they evoke mental state attribution (Castelli et al., 2000). Chapter 6 concludes with a summary of the experiments and integrate them into existing research, as well as provide a critical synthesis of the findings in order to suggest future research directions. We interpret our findings in a hierarchical predictive coding framework, where agents try to create a neural model of the external world to minimize prediction errors, Bayesian surprise and free energy.


Author(s): Abdulhadi, Faten | Advisor(s): Da Silva, Nancy A; Wang, Szu-Wen | Abstract: As the most abundant protein in the extracellular matrix, collagen is an attractive tissue engineering scaffold. IKVAV, a peptide sequence native to the protein laminin, is widely known for its roles in neuroregeneration. Using a computational algorithm, IKVAV-containing collagen variants were successfully assembled in a de novo fashion. The incorporation of IKVAV into the collagen sequence required the interruption of the characteristic Gly-X-Y repeat. These variants, however, were able to retain their triple-helical form, and the one examined yielded a melting temperature comparable to that of our baseline recombinant collagen. Accessibility of IKVAV within the collagen structure was not confirmed, and cell adhesion assays indicate a lack of cell binding to the variants tested. Further studies are necessary to draw definite conclusions. In our system, the collagen gene is expressed under the GAL1 promoter in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, necessitating cultivation of the yeast in galactose-containing medium for induction. To optimize collagen yield, the REG1 and GAL1 genes were deleted to inhibit catabolite repression and galactose consumption, allowing growth in glucose under constant inducer concentration. Unlike the ΔREG1 strain, the ΔREG1ΔGAL1 strain did not show improved growth in glucose. Upon transformation of a S. cerevisiae CEN/ARS plasmid carrying the collagen gene, the ability of both variants to produce triple-helical collagen was confirmed by circular dichroism. Initial Western blots did not show increased collagen production by the ΔREG1ΔGAL1 strain. However, the strain did allow collagen production during growth on glucose, and the concentration of the galactose inducer can likely be significantly reduced.


The paper reports a qualitative, exploratory study of the experiences of a small sample of architects in terms of leading and managing projects. Specifically, the paper considers issues specific to architecture as creative industry and the balance architects have to achieve between the creative and business objectives of their projects. Leadership in projects is examined in the context of projects most often being understood as task-centred and the paper explores the tension between this and modern leadership theory and practice in organisations, both of which tend largely to be based on a focus on people. In particular, the paper reports findings that relate to managing and leading projects whilst maintaining conditions that are stimulating and motivating for creative workers. The study finds that there is indeed a tension between creative and business objectives in the sampled architecture firms. It finds also that modern person-centred techniques are used by architects when leading and managing projects. These can mitigate negative effects business and creative objectives might have on one another, and are observed to prompt value in projects as the autonomy and scope afforded by these techniques encourages creativity.


Based on the law of mass and energy conservation and the one-dimensional model of heat transfer, a heat and moisture transfer line source model for the ground-source heat pump system has been developed. Numerical simulation results in summer working conditioning indicate that the affect of moisture transfer in soil was mainly around the U-type tube. When the soil moisture content is high, the capacity of heat transfer in soil is good. The heat transfer capacity of the ground heat exchanger calculated by the model in this work is lower than those which are calculated by the common heat transfer model. When the initial soil moisture content is about 0.1, the difference calculated by the two model is about 18%.


This collection of essays examines interplays of knowledge and religion in early modern thought. Spanning from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, it considers varied formations of knowledge and religion, knowledge about religion(s) and irreligious knowledge in early modern Europe.


This paper is concerned with the bottom-up hierarchical system and public debate model proposed by Galam (2008), as well as a spatial version of the public debate model. In all three models, there is a population of individuals who are characterized by one of two competing opinions, say opinion −1 and opinion +1. This population is further divided into groups of common size s. In the bottom-up hierarchical system, each group elects a representative candidate, whereas in the other two models, all the members of each group discuss at random times until they reach a consensus. At each election/discussion, the winning opinion is chosen according to Galam's majority rule: the opinion with the majority of representatives wins when there is a strict majority, while one opinion, say opinion −1, is chosen by default in the case of a tie. For the public debate models we also consider the following natural updating rule that we call proportional rule: the winning opinion is chosen at random with a probability equal to the fraction of its supporters in the group. The three models differ in term of their population structure: in the bottom-up hierarchical system, individuals are located on a finite regular tree, in the nonspatial public debate model, they are located on a complete graph, and in the spatial public debate model, they are located on the d-dimensional regular lattice. For the bottom-up hierarchical system and nonspatial public debate model, Galam studied the probability that a given opinion wins under the majority rule and, assuming that individuals' opinions are initially independent, making the initial number of supporters of a given opinion a binomial random variable. The first objective of this paper is to revisit Galam's result, assuming that the initial number of individuals in favor of a given opinion is a fixed deterministic number. Our analysis reveals phase transitions that are sharper under our assumption than under Galam's assumption, particularly with small population size. The second objective is to determine whether both opinions can coexist at equilibrium for the spatial public debate model under the proportional rule, which depends on the spatial dimension.


Applications that process complex inputs often react in different ways to changes in different regions of the input. Small changes to forgiving regions induce correspondingly small changes in the behavior and output. Small changes to critical regions, on the other hand, can induce disproportionally large changes in the behavior or output. Identifying the critical and forgiving regions in the input and the corresponding critical and forgiving regions of code is directly relevant to many software engineering tasks.
 We present a system, Snap, for automatically grouping related input bytes into fields and classifying each field and corresponding regions of code as critical or forgiving. Given an application and one or more inputs, Snap uses targeted input fuzzing in combination with dynamic execution and influence tracing to classify regions of input fields and code as critical or forgiving. Our experimental evaluation shows that Snap makes classifications with close to perfect precision (99%) and very good recall (between 99% and 73%, depending on the application).


: Although mandibular third molar has a high risk of infection extending any complications, the influence of diabetes on radiolucency and acute inflammation in pericoronitis remains unclear. The present study was to evaluate whether radiolucency below the crown is related to acute inflammation in mandibular horizontal incompletely impacted third molars and to review the records of 140 men more than 45 years with and without diabetes. The odds ratio of exhibiting acute inflammation was 3.38 (95% CI: 1.13–10.16, p  0.05) and that of exhibiting severe acute inflammation was 15.38 (95% CI: 3.56–66.49, p  0.0001), indicating an association of acute pericoronitis in diabetes. The frequency of radiolucency below the crown and below the root in diabetics was similar to that in nondiabetics. However, the odds ratio of exhibiting both radiolucency below the crown and acute inflammation under the diabetic condition was 4.85 (95% CI: 1.60–14.73, p  0.01), whereas that of diabetics showing both radiolucency below the root and acute inflammation was 0.46 (95% CI: 0.06–3.74, p = 0.74). Radiolucency below the crown and acute inflammation were associated with diabetes, but that below root and acute inflammation were not associated with diabetes, indicating that the region below the crown carries susceptibility to acute pericoronitis, whereas the periodontium shows a protective effect


The design of integrated solid-state power assemblies presents unique challenges originating from the high current, voltage, and temperature levels at which they operate. Specifically, they are subject to high levels of internal mechanical stress owing to the dissimilar materials from which they are fabricated coupled with the higher temperatures and currents that develop within the modules during their operation. However, as future demands grow for compact power assemblies with ever-increasing controlled-power density coupled with low cost and straightforward manufacturability, the necessity for a predictive capability for their reliability is greater than ever. Surprisingly, despite the lack of a widely accepted methodology for such designs, much of the basic knowledge is in place. Therefore, the goal of this article is to summarize the main modes of failure in power assemblies, the corresponding material degradation mechanisms and driving forces, and the material properties that are required to help stimulate further developments in this area. A vital component of the approach presented here is to base the understanding on a rigorous knowledge of the physics involved in failure.


For robots to one day become fully autonomous and assist us in our daily lives, they need to be able to self reliantly acquire information about their environment. Challenges arise from the limited energy budget to operate the robot, occlusion from the environment, and uncertainty in data captured by noisy sensors. To cope with such challenges, the robot needs to be able to rely on a system that enables it to capture information efficiently while respecting constraints. Furthermore, information acquisition should be reactive to sensor measurements, incorporate uncertainty and tradeoff information gain with energy usage. In this thesis we study such systems using information theoretical measures to formulate as general and versatile a framework as possible. Specifically, we examine the task of defining objective functions that enable us to tradeoff information with acquisition cost, enabling the robot to gather as much useful information as possible, but at the same time keep energy consumption to a minimum. We address this challenge for a variety of different tasks. First, we examine the problem of 3D data acquisition, which is of outmost importance to a robotic system since the robot needs to know the environment it is operating in. We present an information gain-based variant of the next best view problem for an occluded environment. The developed framework enables the robot to quickly acquire information by sequentially choosing next observation positions that maximize information. Next, we look at adaptive action selection in the context of object recognition on robots with limited operating capabilities. We propose an information-theoretic framework that combines and unifies two common techniques: view planning for resolving ambiguities and occlusions and online feature selection for reducing computational costs. Concretely, this framework adaptively chooses two strategies: utilize simple-to-compute features that are the most informative for the recognition task or move to new viewpoints that optimally reduce the expected uncertainties on the identity of the object. Lastly, we present an online trajectory optimization approach that improves object recognition performance. With the idea in mind that the robot needs to make progress towards a goal, a cost function is formulated that allows the robot to improve recognition performance, maneuver safely through the environment and reduce information acquisition cost, while simultaneously moving towards the goal point. Through extensive experiments, in simulation and on real robotic systems, this thesis shows the usefulness of adaptive action selection. We have studied adaptive action selection on two concrete problems, but the use case and need for such an approach can be found in many other applications.


Human activities have released large quantities of neutral persistent organic pollutants (POPs) that may be biomagnified in food webs and pose health risks to wildlife, particularly top predators. Here we develop a global 3‐D ocean simulation for four polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) spanning a range of molecular weights and volatilities to better understand effects of climate‐driven changes in ocean biogeochemistry on the lifetime and distribution of POPs. Observations are most abundant in the Arctic Ocean. There, model results reproduce spatial patterns and magnitudes of measured PCB concentrations. Sorption of PCBs to suspended particles and subsequent burial in benthic marine sediment is the dominant oceanic loss process globally. Results suggest benthic sediment burial has removed 75% of cumulative PCB releases since the onset of production in 1930. Wind speed, light penetration, and ocean circulation exert a stronger and more variable influence on volatile PCB congeners with lower particle affinity such as chlorinated biphenyl‐28 and chlorinated biphenyl‐101. In the Arctic Ocean between 1992 and 2015, modeled evasion (losses) of the more volatile PCB congeners from the surface ocean increased due to declines in sea ice and changes in ocean circulation. By contrast, net deposition increased slightly for higher molecular weight congeners with stronger partitioning to particles. Our results suggest future climate changes will have the greatest impacts on the chemical lifetimes and distributions of volatile POPs with lower molecular weights.


The aim of this study is to investigate the determinants of off-balanced sheet income activities, considering the bankspecific and macroeconomic factors as independent variables in Islamic and conventional banks in Malaysia. This study utilizes 16 Islamic banks and 14 conventonal banks panel data from 2008-2013 and 2002-2013 respectively. The result shows that the determinants of off-balance sheet activities in Islamic banks in Malaysia are bank's size (TA), bank's profitability (NP), and interest rate (INT). While, the determinants of off-balance sheet activities in conventional banks are bank's size (TA), bank's profitability (NP) and the Real Gross Domestic Product (RGDP).


Remittances from migration have significant impacts on economic livelihoods in developing countries. Yet, to date, scholars have paid little attention to the broader ways in which migrant remittances enable rural households to improve their capacity to respond and adapt to economic as well as environmental challenges. This paper draws upon 'social resilience' as a conceptual tool to investigate how monetary remittances are used by households to enhance their ability to respond to challenges, build economic, human and cultural capital, and plan for the future. Using data from a qualitative study of rural migrant households in Bangladesh, we provide an analysis of how different strategies for investing internal and international remittances contribute to household social resilience. Our analysis reveals that remittances in general contribute to improving the social resilience of migrant households. Remittances are important in building economic capital through accessing land for agricultural production as well as housing construction. Remittances also enable households to access education, and thus build their human capital. Nevertheless, the paper reveals an important gender dimension in the choice of investment strategies. Female-headed households tend to invest remittances in human capital, and such strategies may contribute to the reinforcement of existing gender inequalities and do little to improve resilience.


Applicability of Terrestrial Laser Scanners/Scanning (TLS) in deformation  measurement in dams is an active area of study. With the advance of modern  technology, accuracy of measurements is much improved by developments in  design of terrestrial laser scanners. Currently, this technology is used in large and  complex engineering structures such as dams. Although TLS is a high cost  technology, it is particularly used in monitoring of dam deformations, due to its  speed in obtaining thousands of data points, ability to visualize the scanned object  and its environment with high accuracy and ability to take long-range  measurements. In order to determine the effect of change in water reservoir levels  on body of the dam, TLS are used to take deformation measurements in different  time intervals, where the water level was at maximum, minimum and medium  levels. This paper provides an overview of terrestrial laser scanning technology for  deformation monitoring. The concrete arch dam in Antalya Oymapinar, Turkey was  used for case study. Four different scannings were performed in this dam in order to  verify the replicability of TLS results on same water levels and equivalent conditions. Digital Surface Models reflecting dam surface have been created.  Results obtained from surface model differences were examined using surface  matching method.


The development of autonomous surface vehicles, such as the Boeing Liquid Robotics Wave Glider, has revolutionized our ability to collect surface ocean–lower atmosphere observations, a crucial step toward developing better physical understanding of upper-ocean and air-sea interaction processes. However, due to the wave-following nature of these vehicles, they experience rapid shifting, rolling, and pitching under the action of surface waves, making motion compensation of observations of ocean currents particularly challenging. We present an evaluation of the accuracy of Wave Glider-based ADCP measurements by comparing them against coincident and collocated observations collected from a bottom-mounted ADCP over the course of a week-long experiment. A novel motion compensation method, tailored to wave-following surface vehicles, is presented and compared to standard approaches. We show that the use of an additional position and attitude sensor (GPS/IMU) significantly improves the accuracy of the observed currents.


While the COVID-19 outbreak is making an impact at a global scale, the collective response to the pandemic becomes the key to analyzing past situations, evaluating current measures, and formulating future predictions. In this paper, we analyze the public reactions to the pandemic using search engine data and mobility data from Baidu Search and Baidu Maps respectively, where we particularly pay attentions to the early stage of pandemics and find early signals from the collective response to COVID-19. First, we correlate the number of confirmed cases per day to daily search queries of a large number of keywords through Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) and Detrended Cross-Correlation Analysis (DCCA), where the keywords top in the most critical days are believed the most relevant to the pandemic. We then categorize the ranking lists of keywords according to the specific regions of the search, such as Wuhan, Mainland China, the USA, and the whole world. Through the analysis on search, we succeed in identifying COVID-19 related collective response would not be earlier than the end of 2019 in Mainland China. Finally, we confirm this observation again using human mobility data, where we specifically compare the massive mobility traces, including the real-time population densities inside key hospitals and inter-city travels departing from/arriving in Wuhan, from 2018 to 2020. No significant changes have been witnessed before December, 2019.


Pixelizations of Platonic solids such as the cube and icosahedron have been widely used to represent spherical data, from climate records to Cosmic Microwave Background maps. Platonic solids have well-known global symmetries. Once we pixelize each face of the solid, each face also possesses its own local symmetries in the form of Euclidean isometries. One way to combine these symmetries is through a hierarchy. However, this approach does not adequately model the interplay between the two levels of symmetry transformations. We show how to model this interplay using ideas from group theory, identify the equivariant linear maps, and introduce equivariant padding that respects these symmetries. Deep networks that use these maps as their building blocks generalize gauge equivariant CNNs on pixelized spheres. These deep networks achieve state-of-the-art results on semantic segmentation for climate data and omnidirectional image processing. Code is available at https://git.io/JGiZA.


A case of duodenojejunal arteriovenous malformation with repeated melaena without apparent cause on endoscopy and barium studies is presented. The importance of arteriography in the diagnosis and management is emphasized.


Ultra-sonic fatigue tests were carried out for W-Mo type high-speed steel specimens containing 40 ppm N (low N), 160 ppm N (middle N) and 400 ppm N (high N). The fatigue strength of the high-N specimen was lower than those of the low-N and middle-N specimens, which were nearly identical. The increase in N content caused no changes in average sizes of MC carbides, M6C carbides and carbides consisting of M6C and MC (M6C•MC), but increased the size of large MC carbides, such as the maximum size from about 6.5 μm to 13 μm. The fracture origin of the high-N specimen was coarse MC carbides of about 13 μm, and those of the low-N and middle-N specimens were large aggregates of about 12 μm, consisting of two or three M6C•MC carbides. Voids formed by decohesion of the M6C/MC interfaces in M6C•MC carbides larger than about 5 μm in the low-N, middle-N and high-N specimens, and those formed by destruction of MC carbides larger than about 8 μm in the high-N specimen were observed after fatigue fracture under a stress amplitude of 1100 MPa. This result arises because of greater stress concentration due to more inhomogeneous deformation around the MC and M6C•MC carbides develops as the sizes of both the carbides increase. In the high-N specimen, cracking was initiated from the voids in coarse MC carbides, while in the low-N and middle-N specimens, a crack propagated between two voids in adjacent large M6C•MC carbides which constitute a carbide aggregate. The fatigue strength of the high-N specimen is lower because the nucleation of the cracks from coarse MC carbides occurs more rapidly than that of the cracks in large M6C•MC carbide aggregates of the same size as the coarse MC carbides.


As part of an ongoing process to fully evaluate the potential for friction stir welding (FSW) to be used in the shipbuilding industry, a comparison has been made between two variants of the process. 8mm thick DH36 steel plate was friction stir welded using a single sided and a double sided process. An assessment of the processes was made to report on the resultant distortion behaviour, hardness, yield strength, toughness and microstructure. As a further comparison, additional work on 8mm thick submerged arc welded (SAW) DH36 plate has been included as the current shipbuilding benchmark. The overall process feasibility will be assessed including the issue of the requirement to rotate the workpiece through 180° to complete the second side of the double sided process.


Considering the impact-ionization mechanism occurring in the high drain-bias (VDS) regime, a new I V model considering the impact-ionization effect initiated by the draininduced-grain-barrier-lowering (DIGBL) current has been established for the intrinsic n-channel poly-Si TFT. The simulation results with considering the developed impact-ionization current model are in excellent agreement with the experimental output characteristics of the intrinsic n-channel poly-Si TFT with the mask-gate length ranging from 5 m to 40 m. In resolving the physical parameters and their underlying operation mechanisms including the grain-barrier height, DIGBL current, and impactionization current, the developedI V model will be beneficial to further understand the underlying physics of the intrinsic poly-Si TFT.


"Distributed agency and Environmental Justice. The role of water devices in making Cyborg Communities".

The debate about emergency and water security in urban areas has grown in importance during the last decade. Nonetheless non-human elements like water and water devices are still mainly conceived as separated from the human realm, especially when we refer to centralised infrastructures for water and wastewater. This study argues that starting from the materiality of water infrastructures and looking at how devices are combined with humans, objects of common use, laws, practices and discourses we could have a better account of how environmental justice is produced and achieved in cities.
According to these premises, the study applies the metaphor of cyborg and the theory and the method of assemblages (Actor Network Theory) to focus on how injustice is produced through the participation of human and non-human agents during the processes of construction and transformation of water infrastructures in the city. The entanglement of humans and non-humans that gives rise to a particular condition of justice/injustice in the urban space is here defined as "cyborg community". The issues of misrecognition and distribution (referred to humans by Environmental Justice studies) are used to analyse "more than human" processes.
To provide an empirical background to the dissertation's theoretical framework, the study first develops four international case studies of recent conflicts that were reported by media and campaigns of grassroots movements during the last fifteen years. The aim is to discuss emergent rights to water as well as local and global evolutions of the concept of water and environmental injustice. Drought regulations, new laws and institutions, existing/emerging practices and civic groups were analysed through assemblages starting from four main devices: swimming pools (in California), water tanks (in Gela), pre-paid water meters (in Johannesburg) and never installed pre-paid water meters (in Mumbai).
Then the study concentrates on the Italian context and focuses on the campaigns of institutionalised environmental associations. Entailing different actors, values, and conflicts, these campaigns allow to trace the formation of assemblages of multiple agents operating at different scales (including the EU), in which two main interpretations of water rights have emerged: public water and water in landscapes. The study argues that, on the one hand, institutionalised environmental associations took part in assemblages that reinforced the issue of public water. On the other hand they were less effective in shaping a specific approach to water in landscapes, probably with a limited impact on the rise of a socio-ecologic approach to landscape in current planning tools.
An in-depth Italian case study is the central part of the research. The case study started from two objects – the two historical tanks of Fornillo and Pianillo – built to collect and absorb rainwater at the bottom of the Vesuvius (Campania) – that have played a central role in the rise of a civic protest for justice in 2013. During the protest inhabitants asked institutions to complete the sewerage system that has been under construction for four decades and asked to disconnect the two tanks from the existing uncomplete system to stop floods and concentration of pollutants in the village of Poggiomarino. Based on an ethnographic investigation and document analysis, the case was reconstructed from two complementary points of view, discourses on devices and materiality of devices.
In the conclusive part, the study maintains that, in a global perspective, assemblages of humans and non-humans – involving big agents (i.e. climate change or the concept of equity) and small agents (i.e. little devices) – affect the conditions of justice and have relevant implications on how the city is transformed, both in and out of a planning formal logic. Accordingly, justice is regarded as deeply contextual and affected by material objects combined with multiple and heterogeneous entities (from discourses to practices).
The final arguments are explored in relation to some recent innovations of the Italian institutional system concluding that water infrastructures are currently under-investigated in terms of how they produce justice and injustice as technical and socio-material devices. The study concludes that devices should gain a new central role in the agenda of planners as socio-technical, open and mixed (centralised/decentralised) processes of implementation of infrastructures.


Abstract. Modern machine structures are often fabricated by welding. From a fatigue point of view, the structural details and especially, the welded details are the most prone to fatigue damage and failure. Design against fatigue requires information on the fatigue resistance of a structure's critical details and the stress loads that act on each detail. Even though, dynamic simulation of flexible bodies is already current method for analyzing structures, obtaining the stress history of a structural detail during dynamic simulation is a challenging task; especially when the detail has a complex geometry. In particular, analyzing the stress history of every structural detail within a single finite element model can be overwhelming since the amount of nodal degrees of freedom needed in the model may require an impractical amount of computational effort. The purpose of computer simulation is to reduce amount of prototypes and speed up the product development process. Also, to take operator influence into account, real time models, i.e. simplified and computationally efficient models are required. This in turn, requires stress computation to be efficient if it will be performed during dynamic simulation. The research looks back at the theoretical background of multibody simulation and finite element method to find suitable parts to form a new approach for efficient stress calculation. This study proposes that, the problem of stress calculation during dynamic simulation can be greatly simplified by using a combination of Floating Frame of Reference Formulation with modal superposition and a sub-modeling approach. In practice, the proposed approach can be used to efficiently generate the relevant fatigue assessment stress history for a structural detail during or after dynamic simulation. Proposed approach is demonstrated in practice using one numerical example. Even though, examples are simplified the results show that approach is applicable and can be used as proposed.


The Federalist Society plays an indispensable role in educating our fellow citizens about the principles of liberty, a task that is both critical and challenging. It is critical because, as James Madison put it, "a well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people." (1) The ordered liberty we enjoy is neither self-generating nor self-sustaining, but is based on certain principles that require certain conditions. Knowledge and defense of those principles and conditions will be the difference between keeping and losing our liberty. This educational challenge, however, has perhaps never been more daunting. We live in a culture in which words mean anything to anyone, celebrities substitute for statesmen, and people are no longer well instructed. Forty-two percent of Americans do not know the number of branches in the federal government, and more than sixty percent cannot name all three. (2) Four times as many Americans say that a detailed knowledge of the Constitution is absolutely necessary as say they actually have such knowledge. (3)Twenty-one percent of Americans believe the First Amendment protects the right to own a pet. (4) A few factors contribute to this state of affairs. Most people get their information about the legal system only from television. Unless people sue each other or commit crimes--habits we really should not encourage--they will likely have no firsthand knowledge or experience to draw from. Furthermore, people hold lawyers in low esteem. If you plug the term "lawyer joke" into Yahoo, it returns a whopping 25.7 million hits, a number on the rise almost as fast as the national debt. The problem with lawyer jokes is that most lawyers do not think they are funny and most other people do not think they are jokes. This low view of lawyers means people have little motivation to learn more about what lawyers and judges really do. The media do not help this state of affairs. The Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy recently published an excellent article by Michigan Supreme Court Justice Stephen Markman, (5) who served as my chief counsel when I chaired the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution in the early 1980s. He describes how the media's penchant for focusing on winners and losers significantly shapes and distorts how people understand what judges actually do, often for the worse. (6) Nonetheless, the timing of this Essay is auspicious in several respects. First, I write in the wake of two very relevant Federalist Society student symposia, last year's about the people and the courts (7) and this year's about the separation of powers. (8) Second, President Obama has been particularly clear from the time he was a candidate about his intention to appoint judges who will exercise a strikingly political version of judicial power. (9) Third, he has already started acting on that intention by making his first judicial nominations. (10) New Presidents typically make their first judicial nominations in July or even August, yet the Senate Judiciary Committee has already held a hearing on the President's first nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals, and the President sent two more nominees to the Senate just a few days ago. Mark Twain popularized the notion that there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. (11) I prefer Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's comment that you may be entitled to your own opinion, but not your own set of facts. (12) Either way, I will statistically describe two macro and two micro factors of the judicial confirmation process to show its recent transformation before turning to how it should be conducted going forward. The two macro factors are hearings and confirmations. The Judiciary Committee held hearings for fewer judicial nominees during the 110th Congress than any Congress since before I entered the Senate. This lack of hearings is not the result of the Judiciary Committee's inability to multitask. …


We have developed a model of haemodynamic cerebral ischaemia by inducing haemorrhagic hypotension (40-50 mmHg mean blood pressure) following unilateral common carotid occlusion, with external carotid ligation, in anaesthetised rats. The neuropathological pattern of ischaemic brain damage was correlated with the distribution of change in cerebral blood flow using thel4C-iodoantypyrine autora- diographic technique. Whereas hypotension alone (40-50 mmHg) resulted in neither ischaemic brain damage nor significant alterations in cerebral blood flow, the combination of this degree of hypotension with unilateral carotid occlusion produced predominantly unilateral ischaemic brain damage which correlated with regions of reduced cerebral blood flow. With this type of haemodynamlcally induced oligaemia, the most vulnerable areas were the lateral neocortex, the caudate nucleus, the hippocampus and the thalamus. Within the cortex, the greatest reductions in blood flow occurred in the deeper cortical layers, and this was the most frequent site of ischaemic cell change. These data support the concept of a haemodynamic mechanism in the pathogenesis of some transient cerebral ischaemic attacks in man. Stroke Vol 15, No 4. 1984


Abstract The aim of this article is to investigate the expression of E-cadherin (E-cad) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) of Han and Uygur women patients in western China, and their relationship with clinical features of TNBC. Totally, 172 cases of Han TNBC patients and 79 cases of Uighur TNBC patients were enrolled. The expressions of E-cad and VEGF were detected with immunohistochemistry. The correlation of E-cad and VEGF expression with lymph node metastasis, TNM stage, and histological grade were analyzed. The 5-year disease-free survival rate of the 2 groups was also evaluated. There was no significant difference in the 5-year disease-free survival rate (P > .05) and the expression of E-cad between the 2 groups. The positive rate of VEGF in Han was significantly lower than that in Uygur (P < .05). The expression of E-cad was negatively correlated with lymph node metastasis, TNM stage, and histological grade (−1⩽r < 1, P < .05). However, the expression of VEGF was positively correlated with lymph node metastasis and TNM staging (0 < r < 1, P < 0.05), but not with histological grading. The expression of E-cad and VEGF and their relationship with clinical features of TNBC suggest that Uygur TNBC patients might have different prognostic factors as compared with Han patients.


This study is based on the image processing system by the authors, and performs microscope observations of the bubbles flow in dense-phase transport region of circulating fluidized beds. The research has tested and experimented on a cold scale-model circulating fluidized bed with a riser that has a 0.30mm × 0. 28mm cross-section and is 2.90 m tall with a video camera utilized to visualize the bubble structure through a transparent Plexiglas wall. The experiment was carried out at different particle sizes, different bed materials ,different heights and different height regions .The result analyzes the impact factor of the bubble size, shape and so on in the wall.


A glass filter from Surveyor 3 has a surface density of ∼1 x 106 tracks per square centimeter from heavy solar flare particles. The variation with depth is best fitted with a solar particle spectrum dN/dE = 2.42 x 106 E-2 [in particles per square centimeter per year per steradian per (million electron volts per nucleon)], where E is the energy and N is the number of particles, from 2 million electron volts per nucleon to ∼7 million electron volts per nucleon and dN/dE = 1.17 x 107 E-3 at higher energies. Not much difference is observed between 0.5 and 5 micrometers, an indication that there is a lack of track-registering particles below 0.5 million electron volts per nucleon. The Surveyor data are compatible with track results in lunar rocks, provided an erosion rate of ∼10-7 centimeter per year is assumed for the latter. The results also suggest a small-scale erosion process in lunar rocks.


This important book is clearly destined to become the standard reference work on the twelve major spice crops with which it deals in detail: pepper, cinnamon and cassia, nutmeg and mace, clove, pimento, capsicum, ginger, turmeric, cardamon, vanilla and coriander. After a short introductory chapter on the history of spices, each is treated systematically, botany and agriculture first, followed by very full treatments of chemistry, trade and economics. Line drawings from The Botany of Tropical Crops are reproduced for most of the species and there are a few half-tones in the text. There are extensive bibliographies. The book is not light reading, but the authors have condensed a vast amount of information into a (relatively) small space and the work surely gains in authority from its diverse authorship: the first is an eminent economic botanist and the other three are members of the staff of the Tropical Products Institute. I thought there were a few minor defects as follows. First, it must usually be possible to say a little more about breeding the various species (it certainly is for capsicum, for example). Second, for the non-chemical reader, structural formulae for leading constituents (given for some crops but not for others) would be helpful. And a short chapter on the comparative biochemistry of flavour constituents and their biosyntheses could be extraordinarily interesting. N. W. Simmonds


Camera Device is crucial components of Automobile punching parts on-line detector and Its dynamic characteristics has a critical influence on the accuracy of Automobile punching parts on-line detector. To reduce the relative acceleration of Camera Device to the measured part, biaxial body of Automobile Punching Parts On-line Detector was optimized. On the basis of analyzing mechanism, simplifying the prototype, determining the design variables and the objective function and the constraint condition, this paper puts forward the parameter optimization mathematic model with the minimum of the acceleration of Camera Device relative to the point on the measured work piece as objective function and completes mechanism simulation and optimization by the ADAMS software. The results show that some design parameters gets more reasonable and dynamic performance of Automobile punching parts on-line detector is better.


Mathematical models describing cell movement and proliferation are important research tools for the understanding of many biological processes. In this work we present methods to include the effects of domain growth on the evolution of spatial correlations between agent locations in a continuum approximation of a one-dimensional lattice-based model of cell motility and proliferation. This is important as the inclusion of spatial correlations in continuum models of cell motility and proliferation without domain growth has previously been shown to be essential for their accuracy in certain scenarios. We include the effect of spatial correlations by deriving a system of ordinary differential equations that describe the expected evolution of individual and pair density functions for agents on a growing domain. We then demonstrate how to simplify this system of ordinary differential equations by using an appropriate approximation. This simplification allows domain growth to be included in models describing the evolution of spatial correlations between agents in a tractable manner.


This chapter aims to introduce and discuss continuous user authentication during natural user-phone interaction. Two types of user authentication are considered, including touch gesture-based and keystroke-based methods.We have described the threats encountered by the pervasive mobile devices, and that the goal of continuous user authentication is to balance security and usability duringnatural user-phone interaction. Literature on two types of user authentication has been reviewed, including touch gesture-based and keystroke-based authentication methods. General touch gesture features have also been elaborated as the feature basis for both types of methods. Three methods have been described: the first one using dynamic time warping, the second one using GTGF and statistical modelling, and the last one using virtual key typing features. The first two methods are good examples of continuous user authentication, which extract user identity from touch gestures throughout the usage sessions. The last method is a good example of user authentication, which takes effects when users apply virtual key typing. We have evaluated the effectiveness of the methods using collected databases as well as online testing user studies.


Article history Received: 24 Feb, 2016 Revised: 28 Mar, 2016 Accepted: 31 Mar, 2016 Abstract Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is one of the most widely used food additives as a flavour enhancer but its high dose can induce toxic effects on the liver. Melatonin is a potent antioxidant, could ameliorate acute and chronic hepatic injury. The present work was essentially designed to evaluate the ameliorating role of melatonin on the liver of pregnant female Albino rats and their pups induced by MSG. In the present research, twenty four pregnant Albino rats were divided into four groups (n=6). The control group received saline solution, the melatonin group received 100 mg/kg b.wt, MSG treated group received 400 mg/kg b.wt and ameliorative group received MSG 400 mg/kg b.wt simultaneously with melatonin 100 mg/kg b.wt. All groups were received their corresponding dose from the 4th day of gestation till the end of weaning period. The histological study of the current work revealed that MSG could induce damage of hepatocytes with cytoplasmic vacuolation, dilation of central vein and blood sinusoids, prominent Kupffer cells, infiltration cells around the portal area, variable degree of fibrosis, and scattered fatty cells. Furthermore, MSG consumption is also associated with ultrastructural alterations that varied considerably from mild structural changes to cytoplasmic lysis and degradation of some cellular organelles. Such alterations were represented by undifferentiated cytoplasm with dispersed vacuoles, nuclear pyknosis, swollen and vacuolated mitochondria, manifested dilated rough endoplasmic reticulum, remarkable aggregation of glycogen granules and fat droplets and obvious dispersion of collagenous fibers. Supplementation of melatonin ameliorated MSG-induced histopathological and ultrastrucural changes in liver cells.